[56] ‘General Grant,’ he writes,
will keep us all doing something this season. If the generals in the Army of the Potomac do not play upon him, he will clear Virginia of the Rebels. But Grant himself will be there, and he will watch so closely all whom he suspects, that they will be obliged to do their duty. I expect that Sherman will keep the cavalry busy this season. He believes in hurting the Rebels, and will go in for grand raids.In the expedition from Atlanta, under Generals Stoneman and McCook, the Fifth Iowa Cavalry was attached to the command of the latter. The two columns marched southeasterly in divergent lines, having arranged a junction after two days. While McCook's column were engaged in tearing up the rails of the Macon Road at Lovejoy's Station, they were assailed by a superior force, and retreated towards Newnan on the West Point Railroad, where they met and were hemmed in by another body of Rebels, through whom the main body of the Union forces cut their way, and reached Atlanta with the loss of five hundred men. Tebbets was captured at a point remote from the main body, whither he had ridden in haste to warn a friend on picket, who, without his knowledge, had but a few minutes previously been captured. This was on the 30th of July, 1864. The following is an extract from a letter written by Mr. B. H. White, the friend above mentioned, dated Nashville, October 30, 1864, after his escape from the enemy:—
Our captors took from us whatever they wanted. Afterwards we were searched three times, the last time at Andersonville. There we were compelled to remove our clothing, which they examined piece by piece, and everything they found they kept, even photographs and letters. Those who were lucky enough to keep thus far extra clothing or a blanket were here relieved of it, and we were turned loose into the stockade with what we happened to have on our backs. But for some reason they left me a blanket and Martin a piece of canvas. Of the six hundred that were put into the stockade that day, at least half were without boots or shoes, and many without hat or coat. . . . There were confined in this stockade about thirty-two thousand men. Their condition I will not attempt to describe. If I should
